Color photography has been popularized and color photographs are obtainable more rapidly and easily in any place owing to the great progress of photographic light-sensitive materials per se and development processing technology. For instance, with respect to color prints using silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials, advance in a centralized processing system in a production point called a color processing laboratory provided with high-speed printers and large-size processing machines for mass production or a divided processing system in a shop in which a small-size printer processor named a mini lab is furnished makes it possible to produce a large amount of color prints corresponding to various needs. However, it is still desired to produce a large amount of color prints more rapidly and more simply.
Regarding rapid processing, a technique of processing a color photographic light-sensitive material containing a silver halide emulsion having a high silver chloride content with a color developer containing substantially no sulfite ion and benzyl alcohol is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,878. As to short exposure, a technique for obtaining a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material suitable for short exposure with light of high illumination intensity by incorporating iron ions concentratively into a surface region of silver halide grain having a high silver chloride content excellent in the rapid processing suitability is disclosed in JP-A-3-132647 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"). Using this technique, not only the reduction of development processing time but also the reduction of exposure time can be achieved.
In addition to the shortening of time for the production of color prints, stabilization of qualities of color prints obtained has been always required in order to increase production efficiency. For such a purpose, stability of characteristics of silver halide light-sensitive materials used for the production of color prints is first important. When the characteristics of silver halide light-sensitive materials for color prints are stable, operation of high-speed printer can be performed under constant printing conditions, and thus the production efficiency increases in the color processing laboratory. Also, the stability of characteristics of silver halide light-sensitive materials for color prints often connects directly with the qualities and yield of prints obtained, since it is not easy to secure a skilled operator for the mini lab in the shop.
The inventor has been investigated the technique disclosed in JP-A-3-132647 described above in order to obtain a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material suitable for short exposure. As a result, it is found that the silver halide photographic light-sensitive material has high sensitivity and hard gradation and is hardly desensitized when pressure is applied to the unexposed silver halide photographic light-sensitive material as described in JP-A-3-132647. However, when the silver halide photographic light-sensitive material is stored for a long period of time before exposure, undesirable sensitization occurs and when the unexposed silver halide photographic light-sensitive material stored for a long period of time undergo pressure, desensitization does not take place but sensitization occurs.